FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Shomari Figures talks about his campaign - Midday Mobile - 9-19-24
"There will be no personal nor direct attacks on anyone, and I would ask that you please try to keep down the loud cheering and the clapping. There will be no booing and no unruly behavior." With that, this is painful, and it will be for a long time. "Don't talk, baby! That's right! This man knows what's up!" "Oh, he's a couple of high-stepping turkeys, and you know what to say about a high stepper. No stepper. Too high for a high stepper!" "This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065." "Well, Sean's a tough guy. I mean, I think everybody knows that. You know, Sean, he took some licks, he hangs in there." "Yeah, what's wrong with the deal we got?" "I mean, the deal we got pretty good, don't it?" "Did you hear what I said?" "So, this is a brave council." "I had no doubt about them." "That doesn't suck. If you don't like it, you're bad." "Last question. Were you high on drugs?" "Last question. Kiss my ****." Right. Here we go, FM Talk 1065 Midday Mobile, glad to have you here on this Thursday edition of the show. Phone number, the same as it ever was, it's 3430106. Now, they could see through on the text line, the very popular text line also, phone calls 3430106, and if you're running that FM Talk 1065 app, which I appreciate when y'all download the app, it's free, it's waiting for you. If you're an Apple user, it's on the app store. If you're an old dad, like me, and run an Android phone, it's on Google Play where the unhipped people are. Either way, just look for FMTALK1065, and you'll see our logo there, that's the app, download it. In addition to calling and texting from it, you can also use the Talk Mac feature, leave it some message, show schedules on there, all our social media feeds in one place with breaking news, traffic maps, weather information all one place, FM Talk 1065 app. I think it's worth what you're paying for it, being free out there. In addition, reminders here going into tomorrow, another chance at that $100 gift certificate from Mason Hills Farm, we do this weekly during college football, it'll come up, it's not going to be online, it's going to be on the good old fashioned telephone call in tomorrow. I'll tell you when, I'll prompt you to call in and it'll be one of these deals where you call in. You're the right caller, you'll win the $100 gift certificate from Mason Hills Farm, but man, Joey, get that meat for your next cookout, watching the game, grilling out, we'll hook you up with that. And a reminder to myself, as I remind you, of course, college pickum, the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of us in college pickum, never got to make your picks before Saturday's game starts, so make sure you do that. Maybe today, I don't know how much would change. Yeah, I know there's people here at work like Dalton and Dan that are, you know, maybe more football savvy than I in the weight, right, to make their picks because something might change by Thursday, I figure I'm going to make those picks. All right, and also coming up in today's show, Dale Leach from Land Yap joins me and a story from Andrew Rainey over at WPMI. This headline here, heightened tensions over election integrity driving poll workers away. Now you hear the, you've probably seen some of the print ads you've heard probably judged on Davis on here, applying or appealing to people to work at the polls. And it's, here's a stat here from Andrew Story, said Mobile County needs more poll workers for the upcoming presidential election. If more people don't sign up, it could lean to longer wait times for voters on election day. So here's some stats. It takes 1,100 poll workers to keep things running smoothly at 80 different polling locations. So probably judge Davis said, we really thought we'd have this wrapped up. By now we started early in our recruitment for poll workers for the general election. I can attest that the probate judge came in here talking about it and we've had public service announcements about it, but he then goes on to say it's not a fire panic state yet. But we want to get this addressed. Well, imagine, because I mean, we're, we're just looking at it, you know, a month and a half here away before election day. Judge Davis says these are three reasons why people are hesitating to work the polls. For one is fear of getting sick, which is a concern that began in the pandemic. Seniors primarily work as poll workers got that right. Another is pay, which is increased by 50 bucks this year, which Davis hopes helps. Now most workers will earn $200 a day for days work. So here's something I would like to say, here's where I know that it is a, a seasoned citizen gig to run polls, but college kids, I don't know if things may have changed, but when I was in college, if I could have made $200 in a day to do something because it had been a big weekend afterwards. So I'm just saying maybe outreach to some younger people too because 200 bucks a day, if they've got like a college schedule where they can work around classes, that's pretty good stuff. And Davis said he has received more letters and calls this year than previous elections by people worried about election integrity. He said there's a quote from here. The story said there's a lot of concern expressed about what they're seeing on TV and what's going on in other parts of the country and violence at the polls and people trying to disrupt the election process. And I think some of our poll workers just don't want to be a part of that. They're afraid it might happen here. And quote, I think we've ever, you know, in the recent history seen that here, but I, you know, people watch national news and are worried about it. But let me do this. So Judge Davis, you'll be happy that I do this, this part of the story. If you're interested in becoming a poll worker, you can call the election center, I'll give you the phone number, but you're going to, you have to Google this, it's 5746080. Or you can email elections@probate.mobilecountyal.gov or better yet, if you want to just send a text in to the text line, I'll cut and paste that information in there and you can grab it from there. All right. Coming back, more mid-day mobile, AL2 candidate here in the general, but Democrat Shomori Fingers joins me. We'll talk with him. Get your questions as well. Right here on the day mobile. This is mid-day mobile with Sean Sullivan on FMTalk1065. Right, 1215 FMTalk1065, mid-day mobile, I'd have y'all along. And AL2's candidate from the Democrat party, he probably doesn't have the actual number of weeks or days before election day, but Shomori Fingers, back in studio. Good to see you. Yeah. I believe that number is 47 days. Yeah. Great to see you again as well, man. It's one of these things that I guess for some people, they'll be like, "Oh, yeah, it's time to start thinking about election day." People like us that do this world, like we've been thinking about it for years, but yeah, it's wake-up call for a lot of people come October and go, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna be voting here soon." So it's good to get you on and lots to talk about. I want to talk like last time, I'll dial into things that are specifically AL2, but at the same time, a lot of them have tethers to what goes on in Washington right now. And the bigger things, and we're gonna get into this, we talked about education last time, we're talking about Medicaid expansion, I want to get into this. But the overall, and I asked this pretty much of everybody who will come on, size of the federal government. You're going to be, or representative AL2, is a size of federal government right now, the right size, too small, too big, you could say you could move more to this block, more to that block, but is it, are we right-sized or where are we? Look, I think it's a question where we have to assess the totality of it. The federal government right now, we know as monsters, it's big, it touches a lot of different facets of everything, and there are a lot of three letter alphabet organizations and agencies that none of us know. I think the default answer is probably yes, it's too big. Where can we consolidate? Where can we assess the functions? Are they still needed? Because one thing the federal government is good at doing is starting new agencies, but we're less good at shutting them down when they're no longer needed, or their purpose is fulfilled. Is there any history of us ever actually doing that, right? I'm with you. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to think. Well, no, I know there is, right, because there are several sort of New Deal era agencies that are no longer around, but at the end of the day, I think the overall question that we have to ask is how do we make government the most efficient it can possibly be, just like when you run a business, right? When you run a business, you look to get maximum results for minimum costs, or as low as cost as you can reasonably afford to pay. I don't think government should be any different. We have people throughout the country every single day. That's how they have to live their lives. You live within your means, where you have to cut, you scale back, where you have to scale back, you invest where you can to save money in the future or to make money in the future. I think the expectation of government should be no different. I think that default answer is yes, it's too big, and there are ways that we can look to improve. I'm sure there are ways that we can consolidate certain things. I'm sure there are things that may have outlived their purpose, there are things out there that I'm sure that were started by government, just like in the private sector. Some things you start, some programs you start, some initiatives you start, no matter how well-intentioned, they don't work. They don't have the outcome that you anticipated that they would have, or certainly not the outcome that you hope they would have, and government is no different. We need to assess those as well, see what's not working, see what's money going down the drain, see where we can save, where we can redirect, and how we can just make government as a whole the most efficient it can possibly be. When you mention that, and I agree with the spending, and I look at the talk about this talk about it all the time, but specifically yesterday as well, just the interest, the debt service on, the interest on the debt, and I said, as we look at this, I think if I was in Washington, that my plea would be across the aisle that I would say, listen, let's tackle this, because interest, that's not going to any American, we're just servicing debt. Let's tackle the actual debt, bring the interest down, and then some portion of that to incentivize people say, I'll take a third, if we can do this over five years and reduce the debt, reduce the debt payment out of this massive amount of just debt service, we'll take a third of it for programs, as an incentive say, okay, if y'all will get with me, we're going to tackle this, we're going to bring this down, because at least then some of that money goes to back to Americans. Yeah, look, I think the tough part of it is, I don't think what you're proposing, it's certainly not illogical, it certainly makes sense, the tough part is getting the powers that be to agree on why that's why I got a little sales package, a razzle dazzle for this thing. Yeah, because look, we know that look contrary to popular belief, both parties spend, both party spend, and I think traditionally that Republican deficits actually run up a little bit higher on average than Democratic deficits, and so it's, you know, but nothing, that's not to suggest that Republicans are free spenders and Democrats are not both party spent. And they do, they spend on different priorities, and they have, you know, ideologically or ideological differences on what those priorities should be. And so the tough part when we come to talking about negotiating cuts is getting the parties to agree where those cuts should actually happen. But at the end of the day, we got to roll up our sleeves and do it. We got to roll up our sleeves and make it work, because at the end of the day, we know that outspending and outliving your means is not sustainable beyond a certain period of time. And Peter to pay Paul certainly is not a economic strategy. And Peter's Peter, he's done Peter to have a mobile phone, you know, Peter, and that's one of the things that you mentioned, Shmori, it's like the negotiation between, you're right, both parties are spending 100% agree, and they want different things. But I'll watch them go into negotiations and it's not, you know what, you're not going to get what you want. I'm not going to get what I want. It's okay. You get what you want. And that's how the deal is made, both escalating versus saying, man, at this time, I'm not going to get what I want, because I'm not, you know, you're not going to get what you want. Yeah, that historical sense of compromise, right? As I understand the word compromise, it means I'll get some of what I want this time. You'll get some of what you want this time. I'll have to swallow a few things I don't want to this time. You'll have to do the same thing this time. But unfortunately, it's like you get everything and I get everything. Yeah. Well, I mean, unfortunately, it's kind of deteriorated into a, in a, in two a manner now where it's like, well, I'm going to wait until we're in control and I'm going to get everything I want. And you can only get everything you want when you're in control. And that's not the spirit of what government was designed to do. You know, in a, in a, in a, in a representative fashion. And so I don't, I, I don't subscribe to that notion. I believe that you have to roll up your sleeves. Well, first of all, I believe that what has to motivate you in representation is what's important to you locally. Like what are the things that are going to benefit you, you know, your district, the people that elected you, the people that are depending on you to, to make government work in the manner that it was intended to work for them and not just be a pawn and a broader political gamesmanship of, of, of, you know, of this back and forth over, you know, priorities that may not even benefit your district when it's all said and done. And so I think it has to start there. I think it has to start there. It used to be a time, there used to be a time where you, where you had that sort of bipartisan sort of back and forth in terms of figuring out spending and cuts and savings, you know, back in the days of Congress where a member or a Republican from Alabama would have to go sit down with a Democrat from California because we both have military bases in our district and we both have a shared priority in terms of something that we need to address, whether it's military, whether it's veteran homelessness, whether it's veteran job opportunities after they step out of the military and we're going to work together to make that happen. We've lost a significant, a significant sense of that. But at the end of the day, we have to get people in their own that are going to work on those priorities and work on coming together around common sense solutions to the challenges that we face. We talk about what happens in Washington and back here at home in AL2 and this is something we talked about last time and we talked about, and you talk about on your website too, about healthcare and Medicaid expansion and we had that conversation last time, but I want to come back to this because you were talking about, you know, expanding health care opportunities throughout the state, so many have to, I think you said, you know, write 30 minutes to get to something or more health care wise. At the same time, the Medicaid expansion, there's this federal money and you pointed out how many red states have taken that federal money, but Alabama hadn't, but I also look at this from just a state, you know, we're both the Albanians, that that expansion, I think Parker said it could, it would be, if we expand, I mean, already Medicaid's going up even as it is without the expansion. The cost, but Parker said it would go up, I think over $225 million a year for six years in the first six years of this expansion. And I look at Montgomery and now, you know, now the flush money from the ARPA money is not there, you know, how are we, I mean, how are we going to do that? So I think it's a lot of money. So I look at Medicaid expansion beyond just my general, you know, belief that I think health care in this country, the richest nation, the most successful nation, the greatest nation that the world has ever known beyond my general sense that in that nation, people should not have to worry about going to a doctor, all right, sitting in that part to the side, like Medicaid expansion is an investment, it's an investment in the future. And yes, though, if assuming, let's just assume those numbers that you're having seen in myself, so I can't verify them, but let's just assume those numbers. Yeah, Parker's projections. But let me ask you this, Medicaid expansion in the state of Alabama is estimated to provide health care coverage to some 350,000 more people across the state. Do we think it is cheaper to provide health care coverage to 350,000 people to get them in front of a doctor for the next 10, 15, 20 years? Do we think that is cheaper, or do we think it is cheaper to run the risk of that same population of people, which is ever expanding beyond 350,000, it's growing, right, is it cheaper to wait for them to become eligible for Medicaid and then be dealing with issues that could have been avoided or treated had they been able to go to a doctor earlier in life. So it's much cheaper to send a person to my understanding of the data, it's much cheaper to send a person to the doctor once, two, three times a year for a checkup and get general treatment than it is to pay for that same person who is now on dialysis because when they're 55 years old or 60, whenever they become eligible for Medicaid, now they're dealing with the hypertension, now they're diabetic, now they're dealing with the high blood pressure, now they need dialysis treatment, now they need all these, this more expensive medical treatment, right, health care costs accelerate in life, which is one of those weird facts, the closer you come to death, the more health care costs, right, and we have to recognize that, right, like the whole premise of Obamacare, the whole premise of Medicaid expansion was rooted in this understanding that a healthier population is cheaper to provide health care coverage to as they age, so even in the next six years, if those numbers are correct, I'd venture to say if you look beyond that window, when you look to that same, you know, those same stats and how much the state is potentially saving on not having to provide Medicaid expenses for a healthier population, the savings are there on the back end, but at the end of the day, I mean, it is a health care cost accelerate, accelerate beyond the rate of inflation, right, and have so for years, right, the cost of health care and the cost of higher education are two things that are just runaway trains in terms of how much more they cost a year over a year, and it's not sustainable, it's not sustainable, so how do we go about fixing it one way, I mean, look, here in Alabama, look, we live the shortest lives in America in Alabama, right, for all statistical purposes, we are, we have the third lowest life expectancy of anybody of any other state in the United States, if you're born here, you're expected to die here before anybody else born in any other state in the United States with the exception of Mississippi and West Virginia. That's the realities of it, and that's not it. Is that implicitly, or completely not implicitly, is that completely a failure of having these options for going in to get check-outs because you're not talking about last time too, guys were famous for not going, or is that something that is part of it, but part of it's also, you know, I'm, I got access to a doctor and I don't do the healthy. I don't make all the healthiest choices. Yeah. Right now, I got some extra, you know, you and I both, I drink, you know, I drink and eat too much sugar. Right. So, I mean, so we are also part of it in what we're doing. Absolutely. Absolutely. People in Colorado, they're running mountains all the time, well, to heck with them. They don't have as good food as we do, but I mean, you know, so, no, but I, I, I don't think health care access is the exclusive remedy to what, to, to, to the life expectancies that we see here. I do think it's a significant part of it though. I, I do think that. And so, I think people who have insurance are much more likely to use insurance, even, including the guys, right? Like, we're much more likely to use it than someone who, who doesn't because we're not worried about being bankrupted or, or, you know, having our financial situation turned on its head if we get a bill from a doctor. Okay. We're coming right back to that kind of go. Here, Shimari figures our guest right here on Midday Mobile. This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065. All right, welcome back FM Talk 1065 and Midday Mobile, AL2 candidate for the Democrat Party in the general here, Shimari figures our guest is counted the days like, you know, the people that are in the race have counted. If you have encountered November, it's going to come quickly. And I said to you yesterday, and I put the site up, I put, I think, on our Twitter feed. If not, I will put it up later if you need it. You can go to the Secretary of State's website, you can drop your name in there and make sure you're registered to vote. I mean, I'm not going to like say, you should already know, listen, if you don't know, you put your name in there, pops up, don't wait until Halloween to do this. So it's pretty easy to find out if you registered vote and, and if you're in, if you're in doubt, and you know, you're an eligible voter, you can always just register again to make sure your address is up to date and make sure all of your information is current. And there are people that don't pay attention like we do that don't know that they're not voting in the same district as they were before. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it changes here. You can go to the primary or something that might be. Yeah. Yeah. But you can, you can, if you are an eligible voter, you can, you can get out and vote, which in, you know, baseline eligible voter is, is anybody who is 18 or will be 18 by, by election day who's a citizen here of the United States and of the state of Alabama and a resident of the state of Alabama, you, you should be able to, to get out and vote unless you, there's some criminal history exceptions, but, but generally speaking, you should be able to get out and vote on November 5th. Yeah. And that, you know, the website makes it easy to see, to get the information and see where you're supposed to be. But you've said that you talk about the, and a paraphrasing, you can give any in your own words, the hurdles in front of people trying to vote in Alabama. And so tell me like what specifically is disenfranchising Alabamians to vote. Like, okay, like you and I are sitting here day one, we, let's say we've never registered to vote. Yeah. Now we're going to register to vote. What, what are those hurdles? What would be changed? In terms of this year's election, or any time, but you know, in the, in the back row and the micro. Yeah. So I think, I mean, specifically this year, so I mean, we, we've seen sort of, you know, voting challenges sort of, you know, continue over the years, especially, you know, in the last several years. But it's not just within the aspect of being registered, right? It's within the aspect of protecting, you know, civil rights, especially in states that have a history of discriminatory voting practices, like Alabama, right? But we lost the Shelby County case, which eliminated the preclearance for regional districts and that sort of thing. But from a price holder that said we, we didn't have to have preclearance, right? No, no. The holder was arguing for preclearance, but the, but it was the case was called Shelby V holder. Shelby County V holder. Right. And holder was the, was the attorney general at the time, the reason is on the case. But no, they, they were arguing in, in, in favor of maintaining the preclearance requirements, but we weren't, those things, I remember looking at a case when it was there and doing the show and going, the things that were marked there, I'm like, I don't see those anymore. I'm not, so be ignorant person that says the state doesn't have history of doing wrong. I just go, I, I see those things that happened, absolutely, but I'm living in 2024 and I'm wondering in 2024, what impediment is left? What is keeping people from access and voting? Well, I think, well, two different things, right? Like we, we looked Shelby V holder was eliminated in a, in a, in a case that was tried before. I think everybody would agree a, a conservative Supreme Court at the time. Now we haven't even more conservative Supreme Court. And by conservative, I mean, you know, more justices appointed by a Republican president than a Democratic president. And so Shelby V holder struck down, I believe in 2015, maybe 2015 or so. And so we say we don't have those discriminatory practices that you don't see it, but what then happens in 2020, just five years later, we have a new census after that new census in 2021. The state legislature is charged with redrawing their districts, congressional districts, which, which happens after every census because you have to account for population shifts and changes. The state of Alabama draws their district in a way that literally packs as many black people into one congressional district as possible. Yeah. Yeah. And seven, Terry Sewell's district. So as to limit the influence that that population can have in, in two congressional districts, and even this Supreme Court, which is now more conservative than the one that struck down Shelby V holder was, they said, state of Alabama, we believe you've gone too far here. We believe that you redrew these districts in a way to disenfranchise black voters and limit their ability, even though they make up almost a third of the state's population. Yeah. And I, you know, one of the frustrations for me is, is this the disenfranchising black voters versus saying that it's, you know, disenfranchising Democrat votes somewhere because you look at other states where things are flipped and, you know, Democrat legislators have made this, you know, whether you crack or pack in these things, they make these moves. I, nobody likes me on either party because I would like everything to be purple district and everything. Everybody have to hustle a lot more in running for office. But we have this idea here that the outcome, just for me, and this, you know, everybody doesn't know. Shomori is black, I'm white. So y'all know, like, yeah, I always have to do it. I'm like, okay. Um, but I'd look at this as it's about Democrats, not about like the idea that all black folks would vote the same is like saying all white folks would vote the same. It, it, it's me, it just leads me in 2024 scratching my head. And that's actually one of the factors that the Supreme Court and the federal court dealing with this case had to assess they had to make a finding that there's a history of racially polarized voting as one of the findings that they had to make before they could even proceed with the, uh, uh, with the case going down the track that it went down. And so, uh, in Alabama, we do, uh, but look, one thing you said, I agree, like, Pete, Jerry Mandarin is not just something that Republicans do, it's not just something that Democrats do. It's something that both parties have done. It's a prize of winning state legislature and controlling, right? It's a prize. It is. It is. Right now to redraw them politically is one thing, but to redraw them with racial motives is a, is a separate thing. And we know that we are in a state where historically that has been the case. Um, and this Supreme Court found evidence to support the preliminary finding, at least that that was the case, um, with this district, even though I agree with you, we are in 2024 and it should not be the case. Um, but that's what they found and that's why they redraw this district. And this, this is not some Obama appointed Supreme Court or Biden's appointed Supreme Court. We're talking, you know, a majority Republican appointed Supreme Court, three justices appointed by Donald Trump, uh, one by Bush and, and, and so it, well, more than one by Bush, but one of the Bush appointees, um, uh, voted this way, um, it's, um, yeah, it's one of those things, but in, in terms of, in terms of practical, um, you know, sort of barriers to voting and, and obstacles that people, that people face, right? So, um, you know, we've seen here over the last several years, uh, voter ID laws changed. Voter ID laws become more, um, uh, aggressive in the past where you didn't need a, a physical ID to go vote. All you needed was proof of your residency or your voter registration. It was the same time, right? That the, that I've watched the state come through and try to fill in that. Like we will come to you and bring you an ID at no cost voting ID. So yes, we, we, we've seen that now, but what we saw initially was the state eliminating the places you could even go and get IDs in many of these counties and many of our rural counties. All right. Do you think, I mean, do you think that was designed or do you think it was the fact of state cutting just like they cut mental health care and turn so many people out of search the internal back to, you know, I mean, did they, you think they went, we're going to do this to try to disenfranchise black voters in these areas? I think there are people in office, absolutely that, that, that know that their propensity to stay in power, um, uh, is, is, is, is certainly enhanced, uh, by lower voter participation. Um, and the tougher you make it to vote, the least likely people are to go vote. We know that generally speaking, when you have high turnout, and this is not just Alabama specific. This is just nationwide. Generally when you have higher turnout, um, a certain political party wins most of the time when you have lower turnout, another political party wins. Um, and so I, I do believe that is strategic at a certain level. Uh, now do I, do I think that there is a, um, uh, do I think that people here, everybody who wants to vote, uh, can vote, um, yes, but, but, but, but do I also think that the state is still taking efforts to, to make it more complicated, uh, to vote? Absolutely. I think we even look at our absentee ballot law that they just passed this year, um, which is just, it was a problem in search of a solution, right? But they, they, the realities of it is absentee ballots were, were, have never been compromised or jeopardized to the extent that people, they may be anecdotal, but we have stories of them being gathered and filled in, you know, those things. And yes, anecdotal at best. I mean, but they have happened. I don't just, I don't look, you know, people have jumped out of an airplane without a parachute and survived, right? But so it can, it can, you know, it can happen, right? But, but to make it a felony, to assist somebody filling out an absentee ballot, that is just, but they had the, okay, let me see from the other side, they had the exceptions in there for if the person, you know, has difficulty filling it out, can't see it, family members, those kind of things, right? Exceptions of like my aunt needs me to come do it or something like that. So here's how I feel about it, generally speaking. I think that when you turn 18 years old, you should be automatically registered to vote. Interesting. If you don't, if you don't, if you don't have a, if you don't have any of the, the, the, the legal, you know, preconditions, let's call it, to prohibit you from being able to vote, I think you should just automatically be registered to vote. You turn 18 automatically registered to vote, period. But you know, it's like somebody lends you, okay, you got the thing that, like, you know, let's say we buy whatever, we're going to buy a weed eater, okay, we bought that weed eater, went, I got it, we're going to treat it better, you know, we're actually wipe it off afterwards and do this nerdy homeowner things. If we borrow our buddies' weed eater, we may not treat it, I think you should, you treat your buddies better, but you know what I'm saying? If you, but if you have something that is, that you didn't have the effort to do, I, the effort, I find it heartwarming, I guess the effort of going and getting signed up. But, you know, if I have, if I have, my elders just became eligible to vote. So went through that process, it, I don't know, maybe I'm, it's apple pie with me or something. Look, I think, but I like it. I hear you, but I just don't, I don't think that getting registered should be such a, I don't think it should be such a process, right? I think, and Alabama's gotten better at this here recently, right? Like you can register to vote if you have certain documentation online now, which I think is a, is a great step in the right direction. But I think automatic voter registration should be there. I think it should be as simple as when you have to turn in your draft card, right? As a, as a, as a 18 year old, remember that, you were, as a 18 year old male, you have to turn in your draft card when you turn 18, right? And they send it to you and you're still in high school, you don't know what it is. And if you don't do that tomorrow, you will not be eligible for the, yeah. And so I think it should be just, I think it should be just as simple to get registered to vote. Now, obviously, like when you're moving in changing locations, you should have to go through a, a formal registration process and it needs to be secure. And it needs to, to ensure that only those who are eligible are, are voting. But we've seen a, an effort, I think, nationwide to sort of discredit the legitimacy of elections, right? The one thing that I've always just found so interesting, so interesting is that, you know, when President Trump won in 2016, there was not a whisper that anything was rigged or that he didn't get as many votes as he was supposed to get or that, that the system wasn't fair or that the election outcomes should be discredited. There's none of that when he won, right? But come 2020, when he loses, it's like, no, we didn't lose the election, right? We had a bunch of people, you know, faking votes, right? You know, submitting fraudulent votes. You know, we literally had a president of the United States on the phone with a secretary of state saying, find me votes. But this has happened. And I don't use one to, to, to, to, but I'm saying, no, no, and I wouldn't even go in there. But, and I don't think one, I don't do the one aboutism very much. But Democrat Party has done this in elections, before people have contested, they have D's behind their name. We've never had a Democratic president contest the president, but Democrat at different levels, not presidential, but you've had people contest the election results. Well, this is not unheard of. No, no, you, you, I think where you have a legitimate basis, right, to contest an election, right? Let's, let's go back to 2020 in Florida, right? You had a legitimate situation in Florida, with ballots being counted and which ballots were being counted and which ballots were not correct. I'm the whole hanging Chad situation, right? Like, because at the time, Florida had these ballots where you had to put the paper ballots, where you had to push a pin into the machine to punch a hole in the ballot, right? And then you had these situations where somebody took their whole way through. Yeah, the whole only, yeah, yeah, right. And so there was a legitimate dispute, right? And, and, and, you know, I, I can see that or, or any election where, you know, it's within a certain, you know, a lot of states have laws that if the count is within a certain number of the differentials within a certain number, then it automatically goes to a recount. I had no problem with that, no problem with that. But to, to, to attempt to delegitimize the entire validity of an election system across a country, across 50 states, right? To say that, that, that, that, that I did not lose, right? Or even to say even before that, that if I don't win, it was rigged, right? To set that is dangerous, man. It is dangerous because it undercuts the legitimacy of, of democracy, it undercuts the legitimacy of elections. And if you take away faith in the process that has produced 44 previous presidents, then you severely undermine, I think, the foundational core of what our government is based on. And I, I worried about that too, as was happening at the same time, what is it, Sunshine's best disinfectant? So to have all eyes on it, you shouldn't have a issue with that, right? The more people looking at it, the better? Well, I mean, I think, I mean, all eyes, within, within reason, right? You got to have a system that, that works, right? So like, yes, but I mean, the more attentions paid to something, it should be the more people, the more eyes on it, the more people they can say, the more transparent a process is generally the more, the more fair, right? Sometimes, you know, you, you, you, you have to have a system in place, I think that balances transparency to make sure you have eyes on both sides, right? That the equal number of people representing interest on both sides. That's fine. Independence. I can look at it. All right, coming right back, go to the break, you can hang out with me a little bit more. Yes, sir. All right, Shmari figures, our guest right here on Midday Mobile, be right back. This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FMTalk 1065. All right, so welcome back. FMTalk 1065 Midday Mobile. You guys have people of minutes here with Shmari figures, AL2 candidate. And so we actually were in this discussion during the break because we're both mobile guys. So because I can play this game, because let me, I could play this game like somebody from Montgomery, it's like, oh, you know, because I want to ask you why it's important for mobile to have you here. Of course, that kind of, so I mean, Montgomery said, yeah, so Shmari, why is it important for mobile? But yeah, tell me right now, you're, you know, you're talking the hometown audience. Why, why is it important? So listen, I think that Mobile is, is, is very uniquely situated right now. Mobile has not been without a member in Congress from Mobile for a, for a very, very, very long time. It is a, I cannot express to you how, how important it is to have regional representation, regardless of party ideology. The question is, are you sending somebody to Washington, D.C. that's going to have the interests of their home district, their hometown, at top of mine, all, all of the time. And, and, and that's certainly what you get with me. But Mobile right now, we have a lot going on here in terms of the future. We have three very big infrastructure projects that are going on right now, right? The port is, is being widened and made, and, and made to be able to handle larger cargo ships with to have economic impacts regionally, statewide, and, and even through other states here, the airport being relocated and getting the international designation to be able to bring in international cargo, which would help Mobile's port capacity, just as an overall port city. And then we have the Bay Bridge, right? The Bay Bridge, which is a, which is a, you're a young enough man. I think you'll get to drive across it. I don't know if I will, I think you will, but I, but I, but I think having somebody from Mobile gets, gets you a few years closer to being able to drive by it. But look, in my life, I've seen bridges go up in other, in other parts of this country. We're about to see a bridge go up in Baltimore, the one that went down where I've seen bridges go up in New York. I've seen bridges go up in several other places. So I know we can get there and those bridges are all bigger than the bridge we need built here. But it's, it's having someone that's going to prioritize the local community. Somebody that's going to go up there every single day with the question of how can we make this district, how can we make this city, these counties, the most economically viable, the most economically attractive, the safest communities that we possibly can. Who's going to go up there and go to bat for bringing home those tax dollars that you have been paying in your whole life, who's going to go up to Washington, D.C. and who can we trust to make sure that Mobile maintains a place as a priority? Jerry Carl lost. I'm on the Republican side. So now Mobile has one option left in terms of having representation. The Gulf Coast region has one option left in terms of having representation, at least Alabama's Gulf Coast. Barry Moore, who won the district one and who's running against Tom Holmes over in district one, he lives in enterprise. He's the current congressman in this district that we're running now. But at the end of the day, like Mobile is home for me. This is where I was born, this is where I was raised, where I was educated, where my parents were born and raised and educated. It's this is home for me. We're always going to go to Mobile and I mean go to Washington and prioritize making sure that home is taken care of in whatever ways that we that we needed to be. And pursuing those funding resources and pursuing those initiatives and pieces that we need to better life prospects and better business prospects and employment prospects, education prospects here locally. And that's what you get with me. And that's not at the exclusion of other cities across this district. But the realities of it are is that I'm the only candidate in this race that is from Mobile. And Mobile is the has the most registered voters in this district of any city. So we're the largest city in this district. And I think it's important that we have representation in Washington D.C. I think it's important that we have representation in this region in Washington, D.C. because we got a lot to do a lot to work on and a lot to offer. Right. She's worried we're the music going to play. We're going to be finished here. But before we do you got debate coming up? Yes, yes, yes. We should have several debates coming up. October 10th, we have on L dot com is streaming. And then we're pre recording a debate later that month that will air I think a week or so before the election in partnership with a couple of television stations from from across the state. So looking forward to those and and we're up on TV and you'll start seeing more ads coming out and going forward here and you'll start hearing us on the radio more and all those good things and getting the word out. But November 5th, Let's go vote and you can find out more about the campaign at figuresforcongress.com